Learning Java

Safety of Design

You have no doubt heard a lot about the fact that Java is designed to be a safe language. But what do we mean by safe? Safe from what or whom? The security features that attract the most attention for Java are those features that make possible new types of dynamically portable software. Java provides several layers of protection from dangerously flawed code, as well as more mischievous things like viruses and Trojan horses. In the next section, we’ll take a look at how the Java virtual machine architecture assesses the safety of code before it’s run, and how the Java class loader (the byte-code loading mechanism of the Java interpreter) builds a wall around untrusted classes. These features provide the foundation for high-level security policies that allow or disallow various kinds of activities on an application-by-application basis.

In this section, though, we’ll look at some general features of the Java programming language. Perhaps more important than the specific security features, although often overlooked in the security din, is the safety that Java provides by addressing common design and programming problems. Java is intended to be as safe as possible from the simple mistakes we make ourselves, as well as those we inherit from contractors and third-party software vendors. The goal with Java has been to keep the language simple, provide tools that have demonstrated their usefulness, and let users build more complicated facilities on top of the language when ...